Portrait
by dorian dark
Summary: [ONESHOT] Life as a portrait is a mixed blessing, but Severus Snape finds plenty to snipe about as the years roll by. With dashes of SSLE, naturally.


AN: I just wondered, when Harry enters the Headmaster's office at the end of DH, where was the portrait of the recently deceased Headmaster? Here are some quick musings on Snape's life after death, skulking moodily on the wall. Enjoy, if only because it's more or less the only non Lupin-centric thing I've ever written. dd xx

Disclaimer: I own nothing you recognise. Who'd have thought it, eh?

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You get used to it, I guess. It's not as boring as you might think. I mean, the view's a bit limited, to say the least, but I'm at least left to my own devices, by and large.

The older ones, they just snooze in their chairs, heckling the Headmaster, grumbling that the exams are_ definitely_ getting easier if dunces like that Bobby Summers can get an 'E' in Muggle Studies.

Grates on your nerves after a while. I've really got no interest whatsoever in what _used _to be the status quo. Neither do I have any interest in advising the Headmaster, much though he may require my assistance, in running the school.

I'm quite an expert at feigning sleep – a little string of drool at one corner of the mouth, heavy breathing (no theatrical snoring, gives the game away immediately – Phineas Nigellus should really learn from my example), and an occasional shuffle in my chair.

The rest of them more or less ignored me when I first arrived. I admit, the facts _were _stacked against me. Fools. I never asked them to fall asleep, or to conveniently be visiting the picture of the scantily clad witches from _Macbeth _near the Astronomy Tower, when Dumbledore and I had our most clandestine, classified conversations. Took a while, then, for Dumbledore to convince them I was friend, not foe. Not that we'll ever be bosom buddies. All got this inherent anti-Slytherin bias, haven't they?

And far too full of their own self-importance – it always descends into a shouting match about who did most for the school – who introduced _this _groundbreaking subject or _that _inspirational teacher, who first let girls play Quidditch, who had the most statues put up to old benefactors.

Got them far, didn't it? Confined to shabby, smudgy paintings with only each other and their fading achievements for company, and still noone will ever say there was any other Headmaster but Dumbledore. He was the only, the final word. Alpha and Omega, you might say. Lily taught me that one – I suppose we had some of our most interesting discussions about Muggle religion, about our differences, not our similarities.

You'd have had to torture me to get me to admit I was interested in her world though, back then.

She's the only thing I've got to think about, here, trapped in a sheet of canvas, party only to the moaning of others. No legacy to speak of. A footnote in history, at most. _Albus Dumbledore was preceded by Armando Dippet and succeeded by Severus Snape. _A few lines, maybe, about my 'controversial' appointment of the Carrows.

They can say what they like. I took the post to fulfil a duty. Didn't have an ambitious programme of educational reform to propose and push through the Ministry. Who wanted legislation, back then?

Well, those all-important mists of time have made people forget – my past, my part. All for the best, I suppose. It was never for glory. Though I suppose she was glory incarnate.

This is precisely what I'm talking about. Hanging round with a bunch of cantankerous dead people just breeds melancholy. Anyway, the years roll by.

I suppose I was sad to see Minerva go. I briefly wondered if she might condescend to appear in a frame somewhere in my vicinity, and we could snipe and snarl and laugh about that final duel for eternity. But apparently not. Being temporary, default headmistress for only a few days doesn't count, doesn't get you a spot on these coveted walls.

Longbottom is still scared of me. He forgets things, these days, talks about the old days as though he were still there. I get a bit sick of him telling the Headmaster about that blessed sword. Luck, if you ask me. _Herbology_, I ask you. Always grew my own plants, personally, and I didn't need any Gryffindor hero with trembling, age-spotted hands to show me how.

I sauntered down to the portrait of _The Apothecary_ in the dungeons the other week, because I knew Lily Owen was on some training course in the Algarve. _Training course. _What a ridiculous pile of bat droppings. Now I'm sounding like one of these old codgers, frowning at the new politically correct Hogwarts. But no matter.

The third years were writing up some experiment on the effects of different tuber essences on Laughing Potions. I have to admit I was impressed. Seems Potter's kid isn't half as stupid as he was. A few years ago her OWL set got the best results since I was teaching.

Makes me nostalgic, in a perverse way. She could do with docking a few more points, I reckon – her classes seem a bit rowdy, if you ask me. Not a bad choice, though. I confess I allowed myself a brief moment of self-congratulation when she rewrote _Advanced Potion-Making_ with my little additions. Got my name on it and everything. Merlin only knows where she got my old copy – I never did get it back from her father, after the tower fiasco.

She sometimes comes and asks me little questions – generally, I'm slumbering deeply and unfortunately able to offer her any assistance, but she occasionally catches me unawares, damn her. Not that I dislike her; the others sniff jealously when she asks reverently 'I was just wondering if I could ask you a little question, Professor Snape, if it's not too much bother…'

As though I've got anything better to be doing.

Generally I look over her shoulder at the busts of the founders over the door when I'm talking to her – suppose she's accepted this as a condition of the eyes, or a nervous twitch, or something. Really, I'd rather not look at her. She might not look much like her, but she's a bit too close to the bone somehow. Something about her mouth…

Of course, I wouldn't tell her. I'd have every generation of Potters and Weasleys pointing and staring at me, giggling at a long-dead bachelor's hopeless love. Bad enough Potter told that idiot cub of Lupin's. Had him in the office and all, back when he was at school. His fourth year, it must have been. Green hair, for Pete's sake. Badgering me about his godfather, his father, his mother. Seemed to think I'd been great pals with the werewolf. 'I hate to disillusion you,' I said, conjuring up the tone of voice I used to reserve only for Potter and his adoring friends, 'but I couldn't stand any of them.' I buggered off to commiserate with the portrait of Dai Llewellyn on the second floor.

Kingsley Shacklebolt gave me a bit of grief about that one when he came to visit the Headmaster. Said I should respect the memory of a great man and a great wizard, and feel compassion for poor, orphaned Teddy. 'I assume you use the word "man" in the very loosest sense,' I said, and promptly fell asleep. Stupid fool.

I really do wish they'd all hurry up and die, so I could forget about the whole affair. Except Potter. I hear he's had some wing of the castle named after him (hefty donations involved there, I imagine), so I bet there's a decent-sized painting of him just _waiting _for him to step into. Then he'll be up here every other day interrogating me, pretending he always trusted me, or else whispering complacently with Dumbledore about how they saved the world together. Makes me sick.

Mind you, judging how our last meeting went, he might avoid me altogether. I wouldn't say no to that. I got away with my usual snoozing trick for a few years, and then the little twit caught me awake and chatting to Dumbledore, when he visited to give one of those gruesomely emotional 'How I Won the War' speeches. _Everyone _wanted to be an Auror after that.

I couldn't exactly pretend I was asleep once he'd caught me in the act, could I? So I was all, like, 'Potter,' in my sternest Professor voice, suppressing my urge to give him a hundred detentions.

'So…hey…'

'Life treating you well?' As though I cared.

'Yes, thanks. You? – I mean, how's…being a painting? Must be quite interesting, watching how Hogwarts works …'

I raised an eyebrow in contempt. If he has conversations this scintillating with every old acquaintance he meets, he'll be a sure-fire contender for Minister of Magic by the time he's thirty, I thought.

'Any idea how long the Headmaster'll be?'

'No idea.' As though I'd be bored enough to tail that nincompoop through the corridors all day. I contemplated absconding to a still-life of fruit in the staffroom.

'So…you and my mum, then?'

He _had_ to bring that one up, evidently. Not enough that I saved his life on countless occasions, at great personal risk – scratch that, at great personal _sacrifice_. No, he had to rub it in that I basically spent my life pining after a girl far too marvellous for me even to _look _at, and then protecting her obnoxious son. And _still _my canvas is the third smallest in this room. _And _my frame is made of brass, not gold. There's gratitude for you.

'So…I was thinking…there wasn't actually anything…nothing actually _happened_, did it?' He was blushing furiously, fidgeting in his chair. I smirked inwardly.

'That depends, Potter, on your definition of "nothing"'.

He looked panicked. 'I was just thinking…you know…there isn't any chance, is there…I mean, you're not…you couldn't be…?'

I rolled my eyes. I remember Lily, vaguely, talking about some Muggle films that came out while we were in school. She was ever so excited about it. _The Star Wars, _or something. Sounds a bit like that. The sort of sentimental nonsense Potter would go in for. A quest, a long-lost father, a dead mentor. That sort of rigmarole.

I lost no time in informing him that, no, I was most emphatically _not _related to him in any way, and if any happiness came from _not _reaching any positive emotional conclusion with Lily Evans, it was escaping the dubious honour of being Harry Potter's father. 'Evidently, you've never seen a picture of your esteemed father, Potter. A pity you didn't inherit more of your mother's features.'

He shut up quickly then, and seems quite happy to buy my look-at-me-sleeping-soundly act whenever he drops by, greyer and more stooped every time, to graciously receive the adulation of the students.

So, there are very few who talk to me these days. Perhaps it's better that way. I'm quite content to moulder in this frame, disproportionately cramped though it is, and dream away the decades thinking about Lily Evans, and how Hogwarts could do worse than appoint her granddaughter Headmistress. I wouldn't mind talking to her more often, if they'd agree to put her canvas next to mine. We'll have to wait and see.

I have all the time in the world, and all the thoughts of one shining star to fill it with.

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Review? I actually love _Star Wars_, incidentally. 


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